Mussolini sent Jews to die in Nazi camps

By Bruce Johnston in Rome

12:01AM GMT 25 Jan 2005

Fascist Italy's reputation for being far less evil than Nazi Germany may have to be revised after a new book accused Benito Mussolini of being an enthusiastic accomplice in the slaughter of Europe's Jews.

Rather than being a reluctant participant in the Holocaust, The Shoah of Italy argues that "Il Duce" forged a secret deal with Hitler to hand Jews to the SS and was far more anti-semitic than once thought.

Mussolini was voicing anti-semitic views as early as 1936 and his Racial Laws of 1938 reflected the regime's "biological racism", the book's author, Michele Sarfatti, claims.

Until now, the passing of the laws that made Jews second-class citizens has been written off as an attempt to curry favour with the Führer.

Italian fascism could "not be accused of genocide or being marred by the Holocaust", one historian of the period maintained.

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Correspondence between officials from Mussolini's puppet Republic of Salo and the police suggests a pact under which the fascists would transfer Jews to the Germans and death in the camps, Mr Sarfatti says.

The Republic of Salo routinely arrested Jews and sent them to Fossoli, a camp near Modena, where the SS took control and deported them to Germany, he writes.

Since Mussolini had been aware for some time of the fate that awaited the Jews, Mr Sarfatti concludes that Il Duce progressed from withdrawing their civil rights to permitting their physical destruction.

Mussolini "took part voluntarily and knowingly in the Shoah", he claims.

A rival historian, Giovanni Sabbatucci, blames "a general complicity by the Fascists of Salo in the deportation and extermination of the Jews".